Intel Communities: Message List - HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Wed, 10 Feb 2010 12:37:54 GMT

Hello Valdir,

I now know my drive is fine. thanks. very informative post with the links, which were very helpful information!!

I don't expect i'll get any reply from custoomer service. they're not very responsive. they never did answer my question aboout the correct offset for their ssd

thanks again

regards - curious

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 19:25:14 GMT

Hi Curious,

From what i know:

- you have the right drive - the retail, covered by full Intel warranty.

- the retail box come in a box with Intel label and logo, instruction CD, 3.5 to 2.5" adaptor and manual

- the part nº .......80G2GC is the SSD itself, which is the same for the retail and OEM drive.

A full discussion about the terrible way Intel identifies the drives, you can se in the following threads:

- http://communities.intel.com/thread/8492 ( a complete and funny thread with video!!)

- http://communities.intel.com/message/69677#69677 (an authoritative information: afrosty is an Intel representative)

- http://communities.intel.com/thread/6721?tstart=420 (there is some details of Intel numbering)

By the way, sometimes the customer service is not aware of all numbering details...

regards

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 09:48:14 GMT

Thanks Valdir for the thorough response. much appreciated!! i guess i'll just keep doing it the way i have been - seems to work ok.

OFF TOPIC, but would like your input. I just emailed customer support with the following:

I bought a retail boxed ssd x-25m 80 gb from an internet retailer, and the product code and serial # on the Retail Box do not match the numbers on the drive itself.

I'm wondering did i pay for a retail box product and recieve a bulk or oem drive????

RETAIL BOX:
Prod. Code: SSDSA2MH080G2R5
Serial #: 1TFSRDFRSL

ON THE DRIVE LABEL:
Model #: SSDSA2M080G2GC
Serial #: CVPO9466017W080BGN

Is this an oem or bulk drive, am i covered by intel's 3yr warranty?? Is this an illegal drive?

Please advise - thanks very much

ANY EXPERIENCE with these issues of serial numbers, etc????

thank you for listening

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:50:03 GMT

Hi Curious,

Thanks for your kind words but i'm not in any ways an expert, only a "curious" and a little stubborn consumer, but in this Forum do exist people that are truly experts in computer things...

Well, first of all you're doing the correct way, so keep doing this way.

In my post, regarding G2 drives, the old motherboard's bios did not allow hdderase to bypass the bios security freeze lock, and i had to do an alternative way to execute it. And i was informed by Guz that a new mobo bios corrects this behaviour. Nowadays i have updated the bios, but have not hdderased any G2 drive with this bios.

When hdderase is not allowed to bypass the bios lock (not your case) they say there are 3 ways to overcome this:

- to change the drive position, for instance from sata channel 1 to sata channel 4 on the sata mobo plugs (i'm presuming the drive is sata).

- to use another computer to do the secure erase, since the freeze lock depends on bios' behaviour and another computer's bios may not have this issue.

- when none of the precedents ways work, there is a workaround that is a little dangerous to the drive (the hdderase instructions are very clear about the risks involved, but i have never had any problem):

With the mobo's bios set to boot from the drive on which hdderase is, boot with the drive's sata power plug disconnected (and the signal plug connected); after you are on the hdderase DOS program, reconnect the power plug and run the program.

This fools the bios in not detecting the drive and not having a freeze lock command, and hdderase should run normally.

I have done this workaround (for G2 drives) a few times without any glitches, but i'd be more comfortable if i had not to resort to it.

Anyway your're doing the right way, and if you're in AHCI mode with Microsoft W7 drivers, TRIM will keep your drive in very good conditions, without having to hdderase it.

regards

valdir

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 08:11:40 GMT

Hello again Valdir,

If you're still listenig to this thread, i have several other questions that i would like to take advantage of your experience and expertise, if you don't mind.

In your post dated 2-5, if i understand correctly, you said on the g2 drives you had to do a hard reboot (push the power button till the machine shuts off) then uplug the ssd power cord and reboot the hdderase disk, and run hdderase again. Does this mean you ran hdderase the second time without the power connected to your drive??? I am a litlle confused about how this works and if this is what you are actually doing- run hdderase the second time without the power connected. shutdown, Then reconnect the power and boot normally.

what i have been doing after my fiasco, is doing a hard reboot then running hdderase and it asks me again if i want to try and bypass the bios, which i do and the program seems to run fine. Says secure erase completed message.

Should i keep doing it this way or try disconnecting the power.???

thanks a lot for your time and help
- curious

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:11:53 GMT

Hi Valdir,

good to know about the host writes, mine seems to be ok with about 650 gb writes on 5-6 installs and softwware updates.

thanks a lot for your help and sharing your knowledge

- curious

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 20:06:23 GMT

Yes, the drive has endured bravely and patiently many tests and mistakes i did.

Regarding the Host Writes parameter, somewhere in this forum, there were people claiming that in some cases it was not showing the correct numbers, since their new drive, with only one Windows installation, had over 3 TB of usage!!!!

I don't know if the 1.2 toolbox version has corrected this issue, if it really was an issue...

Regards,

valdir

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 15:42:31 GMT

HI Valdir,

thanks for the info - great to know what these numbers actually mean. I thought i was rough on my drive with about 5 clean installs in 6 weeks, but i see by your host writes that you keep yours pretty busy!!! Didn't know the toolbox could count that high!

-regards

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 06:07:57 GMT

Hi Curious,

You can see the information about bad sectors in the Toolbox, under Check SMART Attributes, ID 5, Re-allocated Sector Count.

The number of bad sectors are displayed in a different mode for G1 and G2 drives, accordingly the "Intel SSD Toolbox User Guide" and for instance my G1 test drive has between 28 and 31 bad sectors, created by enhanced hdderases, BSOD's, many installations of OS's and general harsh drive treatment...

Eventhough, the drive works perfectly well and the Media Wearout Indicator shows that it has spent less than 2% of its "working life" (less because the User Guide says that afer the value reaches 1, there yet is significant "life" for the drive... and i hope so...

Another interesting parameter is Power-On Hours Count that aprox. indicates how many hours the drive was active; mine was on the road for 431 hours at that time.

Hope this helps.

Re: HDD Erase 3.3 HORROR STORY - Anyone else???

webadmin@intel.com — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 01:17:29 GMT

Thanks Valdir and Guz for sharing your experiences with hdderase. It's really good to know that other people are having the same bypass bios message. And how they deal with it.
When i did the first hdderase and it locked up i hadn't read the readme or faq docs. But i have since, thanks for the link.

Currently working off an enhanced secure erase drive, because the documentation said it would return the drive to factory specs. Good to know about the bad sectors.

Valdir: Where exactly do you find the bad sector info - i don't see it in the smart data and i can't make heads or tails of the toolbox drive info.

thanks again for the posts. very helpful!!